


The Jewels of the Sea

by kaydeefalls



Category: Lord of the Rings - Tolkien
Genre: Action/Adventure, Gen, Hobbits, POV Original Character, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-06-07
Updated: 2005-06-07
Packaged: 2017-10-09 07:34:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/84581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaydeefalls/pseuds/kaydeefalls
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Fourth Age hobbit fic. "We're going to follow Frodo and Bilbo, Tom. We're going to find Valinor."</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Jewels of the Sea

In a tower by the sea, there lived a hobbit.

If you had told him that hobbits were meant to live in holes in the ground, he would have laughed derisively and said, "Well, that's all well and good for the rustic folk back in Hobbiton, but this is the Westmarch." He would then have gone on to tell you at length about the history of his family, the estimable Fairbairns of the Towers, and precisely how it came about that such earthy folk as hobbits were living in towers a good ten times their own modest heights. "We look out to Sea," he would finish simply. If pressed to explain this further, he would just shake his head obstinately and reply, "That's how it's always been."

He would be mistaken in this, for there is no such thing as "always," and every tradition has its roots somewhere in the distant past. But as far as this hobbit knows, the Sea has played an integral role in his family for untold generations -- although they only look at it from afar, and rarely visit its shores themselves.

This particularly stubborn specimen of the Little People was called Tom. He was proud of his name; it was a good, solid, hobbity sort of name, short for Tolman, which was a name that had always been in his family -- inasmuch as there exists any sort of "always" in hobbit genealogy. Tom thought quite highly of himself, being of such good family, and carried himself with the sort of confident swagger quite common among hobbits who have only recently come of age and feel that they now know all there is to know.

The tower in which Tom lived was by far the tallest and grandest in all of the Westmarch, and, indeed, in all the Shire -- which wasn't difficult, as most hobbits in the non-Westmarch bits of the Shire (that is, the vast majority of the Shire) still maintained the quaint tradition of living in holes in the ground. Hobbits who claimed to know such things declared it was even taller and grander than the mythic tower at Isengard, although the handful of scholarly hobbits who really did know such things said that was ridiculous. This often led to minor skirmishes among the rival factions of tweens, especially when the victors might argue the losers right out of a supper. But at any rate, it was quite a tall and grand tower by hobbit standards, and as non-hobbit visitors to the Shire were rare, that was all that mattered.

Tom lived in this tower because his uncle Holfast was the Warden of Westmarch, which made Holfast's son Ayer (who was much of an age with Tom) his cousin. This is important to our tale because without Ayer, the whole journey and all that followed would never have happened.

It began with Ayer bursting into Tom's rooms one unimportant spring morning with this rather odd announcement: "I've built a boat."

Or rather, it would have been an odd announcement from most hobbits, but decidedly less so for Ayer. When Tom thought of it, he was rather surprised that it had taken Ayer this long. After all, Ayer had learned to swim at some point just after he'd mastered walking and somewhat before he'd managed talking in full sentences. While the hobbits of the Westmarch were no strangers to water -- the Lune River, only a few days' journey from the Tower Hills, was a popular holiday spot -- such an affinity for it was still unusual, and it was not considered to be entirely fitting that the next Warden should spend so much of his time splashing about in streams.

The general consensus was that it was all Ayer's mother's fault.

She had been a queer, scholarly sort of hobbit who enjoyed spending days on end locked in her library, poring over old books and scrolls. Some muttered that she'd only married Holfast to get her hands on the Red Book. She'd had a special fondness for tales of the elves, a mythical race whose presence in Middle-earth was little more than ancient memory. When her son was born, she'd obstinately insisted on giving him an elf name and, after much dithering, settled on Eärendil. "With the Sea so close, it's only fitting," she'd maintained, though few understood the connection between the Sea and that outlandish name.

When she died a year after her son's birth, Holfast decided that EÄrendil was far too lofty a name for any hobbit to bear, and promptly shortened it to Ayer. The nickname stuck; it was a queer name, but simple enough to be proper. But the damage was done: Ayer had clearly inherited his namesake's love of water. As soon as his nurse's back was turned, he'd toddled straight to the river.

And now, he had built a boat.

"A boat?" Tom said. "Well, that's no great feat. People build little boats all the time nowadays, to trade with the Men of the North. And over in Buckland, they've got all manner of ferries and dinghies."

"Not a river boat," Ayer said mildly. He crossed the room to gaze out the round window on the far wall. "Tom," he said, leaning against the window frame with a wistful sort of air, "do you ever wonder why all our towers look out to Sea?"

"I don't wonder; I know," Tom said promptly. "It's what we've always done."

Ayer shook his head. "But when did we start? Hobbits have only been living in the Westmarch since the beginning of the Fourth Age -- our own Age, Tom. Historically speaking, that was not so long ago. So why look out to Sea? Hobbits are hardly predisposed toward water."

"Well, it's practical," Tom suggested. "You can see a storm blowing in from miles away."

"True," Ayer agreed. "And it certainly is a lovely view." He gazed out over the long valley to the vast stretch of blue-green-silver glittering on the horizon.

He was silent for a time, looking out to Sea. Finally, Tom spoke. "What do you believe, then?" he asked. "I know that look; this is no idle speculation. You've a thought or two on the matter, I can tell. Well, out with it!"

Ayer smiled. "And you should know! I certainly spent enough time in your poor company when we were tweens, though I see you but rarely these days. Yes, I've my own theory."

"Well?" Tom prompted.

"I found some of my mother's old books of notes," Ayer said. "She thought that Elanor the Fair instructed that the towers should be built to look out to Sea. Elanor loved the elves, you see, and she feared nothing more than their passing. She longed always to keep watch on the Sea, so that she might glimpse the elven ships leaving Middle-earth. Her own private farewell, you might say."

"That's a pretty tale, and a sad one," Tom said. "And I hope she said enough farewells for the rest of us; for the elves _are_ gone, and no mortal man or hobbit shall ever see them again."

"So it is said," Ayer murmured, as though to himself. He straightened abruptly and strode towards the door. "Come, Tom. Ride with me."

*

They hitched up two of the Warden's ponies and set off northwest. Ayer set the course; in their childhood adventures, he had always played the leader, and it felt only natural for Tom to follow him now.

For the most part, they rode in companionable silence. Once, Tom did ask where they were going. "Can you not guess?" was Ayer's only response, and Tom did not ask again.

Lost in thought and taking little notice of their surroundings, they were nearly there before Tom recognized the road they were taking. "Baggins Crossing!" he exclaimed. "So that's where we're headed! Ayer, what's to see there? It's little more than ruins."

Ayer smiled. "You know the old joke? About the last ferry?"

"Of course," Tom said. "'Go to Baggins Crossing, but don't look for Baggins Ferry; it takes you away but never returns.'"

"Yes," Ayer said. "But there shall be a ferry again."

Dusk had fallen by the time they reached their destination. They tethered the ponies to a tree by the great gates of Mithlond. These gates would stand open until the end of time: they had rusted in place, and no man or beast could budge them. Not that any would care to try. There was nothing beyond them worth guarding -- just the decaying ruins of walls and towers, and an abandoned harbor. Hobbits called it Baggins Crossing; once, many generations ago, it had been called the Grey Havens, but few remembered the old names anymore.

Tom shivered a little as they passed through the gates. Twilight lent the place a ghostly sort of air; Tom fancied he could make out shadowy figures moving along the walls and down to the quay. When he blinked, the visions vanished. He pulled his cloak close about himself and hurried along after Ayer.

Ayer glanced back and saw the state his cousin was in. He laughed. "Don't worry, Tom, moonrise will soon be upon us."

Sure enough, as they descended the stairs to the harbor, the moon just barely crept up above the walls of Mithlond. Silver light spilled over the walls, bathing the Havens with its gentle glow. Tom looked down at the water and gasped; there was a ship waiting for them.

It was like something out of a dream, or the pages of a book. It was all crafted out of dark, rich wood, so polished that it gleamed in the moonlight. The prow was curved like the neck of a swan, regal and elegant. The sails shone white as with the light of mythical jewels, as though they had once glimpsed a Silmaril and still glittered with the memory. The likes of this ship had not been seen by hobbits since Frodo of the Ring passed over the Sea.

"You see, Tom?" Ayer said softly. "I told you I had built a boat."

*

They set up a small camp on the quay. "We'll set off at sunrise," Ayer said, which meant a few good hours of sleep in preparation. Preparation for what exactly, Tom wasn't sure, but as long as it involved that wondrous ship, he was looking forward to it.

He slept soundly, without any dreams that he could remember, although when he awoke it was with a sense of adventure and forgotten glory -- a warm, tingling sort of sensation that faded all too quickly.

It was not yet dawn when Tom awoke. The sky was lightening in anticipation of the coming day, and a few birds chirped sleepily in the trees. When Tom sat up on his blankets, yawning, he saw that Ayer was already awake, staring absently off into the distance.

After a few moments, Tom grew tired of watching him. "What are you thinking about, then?" he asked.

Ayer started, as if suddenly awoken. He blinked at Tom. "Oh. Good morning to you, too."

"What were you thinking, just then?" Tom asked again. "It seemed as though you were looking at something very distant."

Ayer shrugged, a little self consciously. "I was just wondering what this haven was like, back in the old days."

"What, when Frodo and Bilbo passed over Sea?"

"No," Ayer said. "It had already long fallen into disuse by then. I meant before that, when there were always ships in the harbor, and elves dwelt in the Towers."

Tom blinked. "Our Towers, you mean? But I thought you said that Elanor had them built, and that would have been years after the Ring was destroyed."

"That was just a tale," Ayer said. "I think my mother made it up. No, our Towers -- like most of what is beautiful in this world -- were built by the elves, long ago. And we're left with naught but ruins." He looked about wistfully, indicating the high walls and ancient gates of Mithlond. "Just imagine -- they made the Towers, and this harbor, and the empty halls of Rivendell, and so much more. And now they're gone, and mostly forgotten. No one speaks of the elves anymore, and we only remember a few of their tales -- hobbits are not particularly good at writing down the stories that don't directly pertain to us," he added bitterly. "So much has been lost."

"I never paid much attention to the tales about the elves," Tom admitted. "I always liked Bilbo's story best; dragons and treasure and dwarves! All very exciting, but not much in the way of elves. I never really cared for them; they always seemed very grand and aloof, and didn't really do much."

Ayer shot him a pained look, which said quite clearly that Tom was completely missing the point.

"Well, I can hardly help what I like or don't like, can I?" Tom said defensively. "And anyway, I was just a child then."

"But you still think that elves just sort of looked grand and didn't do much," Ayer scoffed, a trifle condescendingly.

Tom bristled. "Don't you take that tone with me, cousin. Remember, I was the one who always told the best tales for getting you out of trouble, while you were too busy staring at your feet and stammering."

Ayer laughed. "If you had to get me out of trouble, it was generally because you had gotten me into it in the first place!"

"Yes, well, perhaps I took to adventure tales a bit too much -- "

"A _bit_ too much! You always made _me_ play Gandalf, come to fetch you off on another adventure! Only you never liked the stories I came up with, so you made them up yourself and then made me repeat the lines after you!"

"Yes, because you were never any good with adventures. You always liked Frodo's tale better. I don't know why; it only had a handful of your precious elves in it -- although I admit the one in the Fellowship did kill a lot of orcs, and was more than usually useful."

Ayer looked thoughtful, and oddly solemn. "I think I preferred the tale of the Ring of Doom because it really _meant_ something," he said. "It wasn't just a silly lark like Bilbo's brush with adventure. It _mattered_."

"Yes," Tom said, "but I hated the ending, or at least Frodo's part in it. It was too sad. The whole point to a good adventure is coming home at the end of it. _There and back again_, like Bilbo. But for Frodo, it was more like _there and back again, but only sort of, and not for long_. Or _there and back and then somewhere else_. Good adventures are supposed to end happily."

"It did end happily, though, in its way," Ayer insisted. "They saved Middle-earth in the end. And Frodo got to go off to Valinor with the elves, which is the best sort of ending for anyone, I should think."

Tom snorted and shook his head. "You never did know much about adventures."

Ayer smiled. "Perhaps not," he said. "But I've built an adventure of our very own, Tom." He stood, stretching, then glanced back towards the east. "Look, the sun's about to come up. It's time to go."

Tom was struck with a sudden panic. It was all very well to sit and talk about adventures, but another thing entirely to actually go off and have one -- and this was _real_, not one of their childhood games. And it was all very well for Ayer to build a boat, but quite something else for Tom to know what to do with it. "Are you sure about this?" he asked, somewhat frantically, as he rolled up their blankets and scrambled after Ayer.

"Of course," Ayer said, laughing.

"But you haven't told me where we're going," Tom said plaintively, and without thinking about it, stepped from the quay to the deck of the ship. Just like that, and for the first time in his life, he was actually on a boat.

The deck was sturdy beneath his feet, but it had swayed slightly with his weight as he stepped aboard -- a very subtle rolling sensation that made Tom's heart skip a beat. The first rays of dawn lit up the white sails with a warm glow, lending them a light quite different from the ghostly sheen of moonlight, but no less beautiful. And somewhere under his feet, below several planks of wood, was the water of the harbor itself. He was standing on water, could feel the gentle swell of waves vibrating through the deck to the soles of his feet. Oh, it was glorious -- and they hadn't even set off yet!

"Where? Why, you haven't guessed yet?" Ayer said playfully, taking in Tom's awe with some amusement. "We're going to follow Frodo and Bilbo, Tom. We're going to find Valinor."

*

When asked, Tom would not remember exactly how they got the ship out of the harbor. He had never even been aboard a little river vessel, let alone a proper boat, and he was completely at a loss. He followed Ayer's orders in a sort of daze. There were a lot of ropes involved -- ropes to be pulled, tied, untied and retied because Ayer didn't think his knots were strong enough. He was fairly sure the boat required some sort of direction that wasn't limited to pulling ropes, but if so, Ayer did that part.

What he did remember, with perfect clarity, was the moment the boat passed between the two cliffs, and the Sea opened up before them.

From the Towers, hobbits could see a great distance, and Tom had always been aware that the world was quite a big place. But nothing could have prepared him for the sheer vastness of the Sea. He'd always pictured it as he saw it from the Towers -- a glittering line on the horizon. It was still that, but far more; it was everything up to the horizon, too, and stretched out in every direction. If the sky was vast and endless, then the Sea was even bigger, because it reflected the sky like an infinite mirror, or rather countless little mirrors sparkling with every wave and ripple. Middle-earth behind them seemed shadowy and insignificant beside that staggering expanse of water.

"Oh, glory," he whispered -- and he couldn't know it, but the sense of pure, unadulterated awe that washed over him at that moment was quite precisely the same as had been experienced by his legendary ancestor, Samwise the Brave, when he encountered elves for the very first time.

"I know," Ayer murmured. But he didn't, not really; the Sea meant no more to Ayer than the means to an end. He would never experience that selfless wonder, for Ayer would never meet an elf, and he knew not how to fully appreciate the glories of the world without the guidance and example of the elves.

Tom was not fully aware of any of this, of course. But when he glanced over at Ayer, he felt a sudden, unexpected surge of pity, and did not know why.

*

The first day of the journey was a remarkably easy one. A fairly strong wind came up out of the east, and the white sails snatched it up. It was as though the ship were flying across the water, and by midday, the land behind them seemed no more than a memory.

"If I'd known boats were this simple to navigate, I'd have tried this much sooner," Tom laughed, lying stretched out along the deck. He would have liked to trail his hand in the water, but it was a bit too much of a reach down from the railings, and he did not want to topple out. Swimming was all well and good when it was in a bit of stream trickling out of the Lune, but the sea was somewhat deeper, and he realized that beneath the tempting sparkle, there were unknown and potentially dangerous currents and other such unfamiliar things. Fish, perhaps. Big fish.

Ayer smiled. "Well, we've got a good wind headed in the right direction, but not too strongly, and not a cloud in the sky. It wouldn't be so simple in other conditions."

Tom rolled over onto his stomach and propped his chin up in his hands. "How do you know anything about sailing, anyway? This is a far cry from the little river boats on the Lune or the Brandywine."

"It's not all that great a leap," Ayer said. "There's just a lot more water, and more emphasis on wind rather than currents. And I took this out for many little expeditions while I was building it, of course."

Tom sat straight up, appalled. "You took this thing out on open water all on your own? Ayer, you idiot, what if something had happened to you? No one would have known where to find you! You're the next bloody Warden of Westmarch, you've got...responsibilities!"

Ayer looked vaguely cross. "Well, I had to make sure it worked properly, didn't I? I could hardly get halfway to Valinor and _then_ realize I'd built it wrong. And nothing _did_ happen to me, so why fuss over it now?"

"You shouldn't be taking risks like that," Tom insisted. "The Warden -- "

"If you think the title is so wonderful, why don't you take it?" Ayer snapped. "Until I marry and have kids, you're next in line. Yet here we are, the future Warden and his backup, floating about on the open sea all alone."

Tom leapt up. "Ayer, we've got to go back. I don't know what I was thinking. We really should not be here."

"Don't be ridiculous," Ayer said. "We're not children anymore. And there is historical precedent, after all. Meriadoc would become master of Brandy Hall, and little Pippin was the next Thain. Yet they went off on a far more dangerous adventure than ours. And which of my silly 'responsibilities' could be more important than finding the land of the elves?"

"They'll be worried when they realize we've vanished!" Tom persisted, pacing the deck anxiously.

Ayer grinned recklessly. A strange light gleamed in his eyes. "I left a note for my father explaining that I'd gone off on a bit of an expedition, but not to worry, because you were coming along to look after me. He always believed your little fables so well when we were young; he's sure to hold you responsible for my continued well-being."

Tom froze in his tracks and stared at Ayer in dismay. "Oh, horror!" he exclaimed. "Do you have any idea what he'll do to me if anything happens to you? I'd rather drown!"

*

"Why Valinor?" Tom asked on the third day. It was raining lightly, a warm and not at all unpleasant rain. There was not much wind, but Ayer was content to let the boat just drift along -- given the clouds, it was difficult to make out the position of the sun, or determine exactly where West was, so he deemed it better to make little progress than to plunge ahead in the wrong direction.

"Well, because that's where the elves went, of course," Ayer said distractedly. He was fumbling with a knotted rope for some unfathomable reason. Ropes were apparently very important to boats, Tom decided.

"Yes, but what else do you know about it?" Tom said. "It's hardly even mentioned in passing in the books I've read, although I dare say you've leafed through more than I. Our library has little in it about the elves -- but you're the scholar. Are there more elven scrolls in the library at Brandy Hall? Or at the Great Smials? You spent two solid months there once."

Ayer put his rope aside. "I was looking for more books on elves, yes, but I didn't find much. The library at the Great Smials has the most, and that is hardly enough. I wish I could visit the great libraries at Minas Tirith," he added wistfully. "They have all the old scrolls."

"You should go with your father the next time the King requests an audience with him."

Ayer shook his head. "That's rarer and rarer, these days. In the records, it is said that King Elessar met with the Warden once every five years. Now it's once every thirty, if that. My father has not left the Shire since this King's coronation, and we were practically babies then. No, I think the Big People have all but forgotten about the Halflings."

"So why Valinor?" Tom repeated. "I only dimly remember hearing the word."

"I first remember reading it in the Red Book," Ayer told him. "It's in Bilbo's song of Eärendil -- _He saw the Mountain silent rise / where twilight lies upon the knees / of Valinor, and Eldamar / beheld afar beyond the seas_."

"So you're just following your namesake?"

Ayer sighed in exasperation. "Not exactly. I mean, yes, I am, in a way, for he was seeking the aid of the Valar as I seek the elves. But he wanted them to help the elves fight a great evil, while the only evil of our days is the dying of the light of the elves."

The rain was lightening. Tom brushed his damp hair out of his eyes. "The Valar? But they aren't elves."

"Yes, but the elves all returned to the land of the Valar, in the end. To Eldamar, Elvenhome -- _to Elvenhome the green and fair_."

"But wouldn't that be a different place, then? If it's got a different name?"

"Oh, do be quiet," Ayer said crossly. "It's all the same realm. If I'm muddling up the names, it's because my knowledge of the elves has been pulled together piecemeal out of dozens of different references and half-remembered lays. What matters is that's where the elves are, and when we find them, they'll be able to teach me the proper names."

"But why do you want to find the elves so badly?" Tom asked softly, but Ayer, who had stood up and strode across the deck in his irritation, did not hear. Tom slowly pulled himself up to his feet and moved to follow him. "Ayer?"

Ayer was staring out into the distance. The sun finally broke through the clouds, glittering suddenly across the Sea.

"Ayer?"

"Look, over there," Ayer said urgently. "See? Just on the horizon? I think it's an island."

*

It _was_ an island, albeit a small one -- as Ayer guided the boat to shore, Tom could nearly see all the way around to the other side of it. It was bare of trees, but covered with grass and small shrubs. It looked odd, somehow -- as though it were just the hump of a rolling hill, and the rest of the land had accidentally slipped beneath the Sea. The vegetation went down nearly to the water's edge, and there was no real shoreline to speak of, merely a line where the grass ended and Sea began. In short, it didn't look like much of anything, really.

"Well," Tom said pragmatically, "at least we can sleep on dry land tonight." He carefully leapt over the ship's rail to land in shallow water. Ayer was a breath behind, and together, they slowly dragged the boat up onto land. ("There's nowhere to tie it off to, so we've got to make sure it doesn't float away in the night," Ayer had said.)

It was not yet dusk, and the late afternoon sunlight was a warm golden-orange. The ground was soft on the soles of Tom's feet, and felt very queer -- as if it were rolling gently beneath him. "Ayer?"

Ayer glanced over and saw the odd expression on Tom's face, and the overly careful manner in which he held himself. He laughed. "Your legs still think you're on the ship," he said. "They'll remember the feel of solid land soon enough."

"Oh," Tom said. He bravely took a step forward, then another. Ayer was right; before long, everything felt back to normal.

Well, as normal as it could be for a hobbit on a little island miles away from home. Tom squinted back across the water, but there was no sign of Middle-earth. For the first time, the full impact of where they were and what they were doing hit him. He shivered, drawing his cloak close about him.

Ayer was already setting off up the rolling slope of grass. "Come on," he called back excitedly. "Let's go exploring!"

"Are you mad?" Tom asked. "It will be dark soon, and no trees means no branches for a fire. We should set up camp."

"Well, I shall have a look around first," Ayer said dismissively. "You can do what you like." He disappeared over the hump of the hill.

Tom considered his options carefully for a few moments, then hurried after him. It was unlikely that any creatures lived on this island, small as it was, but he could hardly let Ayer take any chances. Ayer was his responsibility, after all.

Not that the prospect of being alone in a strange place frightened him at all, because it did not. At all.

Tom had thought the island was just one rolling hill, but as he reached the top, he saw that he had been mistaken. There were three humps, in fact; the one they had landed at was simply the largest. They formed a sort of ring around the island, with a little valley in the middle. A hobbit could easily have followed the shore all the way around and back to where he began in an hour or two. Ayer was down in the valley, pushing his way through tall grass. The air was silent but for the soft buzz of insects and the gentle lapping of waves on the shore.

"What are you looking for, Ayer?" Tom called out.

"Some sort of sign," Ayer shouted back, not turning round. Tom sighed and plunged down the hill after him.

"A sign of what?" Tom asked, when he had caught up.

Ayer pushed on forward. The grasses here came nearly up to their waists. "Look, there, between the two hills," he said. "The smaller mound."

He was pointing west. Tom shielded his eyes from the glare of the setting sun. There was indeed a small hump in the dip between the two hills, ringed with large stones. "What is it?"

"A sign," Ayer said, and broke into as fast a pace as he could manage through the tall grass.

*

The sun was still just above the horizon when Tom reached the mound. Ayer was already hovering around it excitedly. "Do you see?" he demanded. "Do you see the inscription on the stone?"

Tom stepped forward to take a closer look. The mound was ringed with stones, but Ayer was referring to the largest, which stood imbedded in the mound almost like -- "It looks a bit like a hobbit hole!"

Ayer shot him a disdainful look. "We have round wooden doors. This one has huge stone slabs. And it's not the right shape, and it's too big. And you haven't even looked at the inscription!"

Taking another step closer, Tom peered at the largest stone. Sure enough, an inscription was carved into the stone, in a flowing script. "It's...it's elvish, isn't it?"

"Yes!" Ayer cried. He was practically bouncing. "Do you know what this means?"

"Er, that elves were here?"

"This must be Tol Eressëa!" Ayer practically shouted. "The Lonely Isle! Elves dwelt here in the Second Age!"

Tom looked around judiciously. Aside from the mound, there were no other signs of habitation, past or present, and the island was too small to hide any other surprises -- unless this mound was merely the entrance to caves beneath the earth, and elves didn't dwell underground, dwarves did. The only elves who would live in a mound like this would be -- "A burial mound."

Ayer blinked at him. "What?"

The more he thought about it, the more sense it made. "I think this was a burial mound. Can _you_ read elvish? Because I certainly cannot."

"I tried to learn it," Ayer said, shifting his weight uncomfortably, "but there were only snatches of it in the books in our libraries. There's more in the Thain's copy of the Red Book than anywhere else, and that is not much."

"Oh," Tom said, disappointed. He'd thought Ayer knew just about all there was to know about the elves; it hadn't occurred to him that there might be limits to his knowledge.

"I mean, I know a little," Ayer said quickly. "I taught myself what little I could. But the only place the language is still spoken is in Minas Tirith, among the line of Elessar and Arwen. Some scholars there still study it, but..."

"Can you try?" Tom suggested. "We might be able to figure out what this is, if it really is a burial mound or not. Maybe even where we are."

Ayer jutted out his chin stubbornly. "I told you, this is the Lonely Isle. We're right near the shores of Valinor!"

"Are we?" Tom said doubtfully. "Wouldn't we be able to see it, then? Valinor, I mean."

"Well, it's getting dark," Ayer said. His voice was hesitant; for the first time, he looked unsure of himself. "I'm sure we'll be able to see it in the morning."

"I think you'd better try to read the inscription before the light goes," Tom suggested. "We should really get back to the ship and set up camp."

"Fine," Ayer snapped. He strode up to the stone slab and squinted at it, tracing the script slowly with his finger.

Tom waited. The sun slowly sank below the horizon, sending its dying rays out to bathe the mound in a reddish light.

"I am pretty sure this first bit is _Here lies_," Ayer said eventually. His brow was furrowed in concentration. "Or something to that effect. You were right, it's probably a tomb."

He continued tracing the letters, frowning. "I think this is a name, but not one I recognize. I haven't seen this combination of letters before. See, here," and he took Tom's hand and brought it up to the stone, circling a short string of rounded symbols. "It's probably just makes up a sound I haven't encountered; I would not be surprised, given the somewhat random nature of my elvish education."

The stone felt warm under Tom's hand, although it would soon cool as night came. The rough edges of the inscription tingled along his fingertips with an alien power. There was a primeval feel to the stone, old and tired, but still humming with ancient memory and sorrow. He jerked his hand away, feeling like an intruder somehow.

Ayer did not notice. "This word I've seen before -- it means _prince_ or _lord_, or something like that. And I suppose this next bit is whatever this elf was prince or lord of. It looks familiar. I'm sure I've seen it before, but I can't quite -- " He broke off and stared at the letters, biting his lip in concentration. Tom watched him uncertainly, feeling an odd mixture of unease and curiosity.

The sun slipped away, leaving them in dim, dusky twilight.

"Nargothrond," Ayer breathed. "Lord of Nargothrond."

"What does that mean?" Tom asked. "I've never heard that word before."

Ayer turned to him slowly, an unfamiliar expression of awe upon his face. "We haven't found the Lonely Isle after all, Tom," he said shakily.

"What is Nargothrond?" Tom asked again.

"It was a realm of Beleriand," Ayer said softly. "It sank beneath the Sea at the end of the First Age."

*

They lit no fire, but set up camp by moonlight. The stars glittered in the deep indigo sky. Ayer had stowed substantial amounts of dried fruits and meat onboard weeks before they had set out; while Tom had hoped that land would mean fresh meat or herbs, the food from the ship was well enough. But Ayer had been silent since their return to the ship, brooding, and Tom was not sure how to pull him out of his dark mood.

Tom unrolled his blankets and lay down upon them, but could not sleep. Crickets chirped in the night, and he wondered how they had gotten to the island. Had they always been there, or had they come across the Sea somehow? Why would a cricket undertake such a journey?

Why would a hobbit?

He missed the Shire, although they had been gone for less than a week. The Sea was lovely, but he rather liked the view of it from the Towers. And journeying by boat gave him an odd sense of distance; with the Sea stretching out in all directions as far as the eye could see, it was easy to lose track of the passage of time. It could have been weeks since they left home. Months, even. Traveling within the Shire, he had ever gotten homesick -- not even the time he spent four full months in Tuckborough with some distant relations. Because there he'd been surrounded by other hobbits, family, and aside from certain discrepancies in living arrangements, life in one part of the Shire was much like life in any other part. It all felt like home.

"Ayer?" Tom said softly. "Are you still awake?"

"Yes," Ayer replied, sitting up. "What is it?"

"I'm sorry that we didn't find the Lonely Isle."

Ayer shrugged it off. "We will, just not yet. I should have known better than to expect to find it so quickly."

"Do you think this is really part of Beleriand?" Tom asked.

"I don't know," Ayer sighed. "It doesn't make sense. I thought the entire realm was destroyed after the Great Battle with Morgoth, but I just don't know. Hobbits certainly kept no records of such early times, if our race even existed then, and the history that has filtered down through the Ages to our books is vague at best. I only recognized the name Nargothrond because I saw a map of Beleriand once; I know nothing more about it."

A breeze came up off the Sea, and Tom curled up in his makeshift bed. The grass was thick here, and made for an unexpectedly soft padding beneath the rough woolen blankets. Ayer's voice sounded much calmer now than it had been at the mound, and oddly comforting. _There's a bit of home here with me still_, Tom thought.

"Perhaps not all of Beleriand was destroyed," Tom suggested. The quiet lapping of the waves was mesmerizing. He started feeling sleepy. "Or maybe this is not Nargothrond at all, and that elf-lord was buried here after the ruin of Beleriand."

"Maybe," Ayer said. "Or perhaps the Sea is granting her conquests release at last. Perhaps she is relinquishing the lost realms, piece by piece, to float back up to the surface."

It was like camping out with Ayer when they were tweens. Tom came up with the best adventure stories, but at the end of the day, Ayer was the one who recounted the lost tales, telling Tom the old myths and legends as they drifted off to sleep under the stars. There were even more stars here than in the Shire, thousands more, all reflected in the swelling tides of the Sea.

"Perhaps one day she shall even release her Silmaril," Ayer went on, in his most soothing storytelling voice, "that burned Maglor such that he could not endure it and cast it off into the waves. The Sea claimed it for her own; it gleams still in the ocean depths, and sparkles in every drop of seawater. But if the ruined lands of Beleriand are now drifting back up to light and air, perhaps someday the Silmaril shall follow. Perhaps we shall find it floating along on the waves like this island -- the greatest and most beautiful of all the jewels of the Sea."

Tom slept.

*

He dreamed of a man clad all in shimmering silver. The man was beautiful, shining with an inner light the glory of which Tom had never before seen. His body was strong and his face youthful, but in his eyes were depths of age and wisdom beyond reckoning. There was grief in his eyes, too; a deep, ancient sorrow like that of the stones of the burial mound.

The man spoke, and his voice was low and musical. "Where are you going, young Perian? The great seas of Arda were not meant for the Little People."

"I would follow my cousin," Tom said. He clutched his hands tightly together to keep them from trembling.

"Your race is not meant to live across the Sea," the man said gently. "Return to your home, son of Samwise Gamgee; your place is in the Shire. Return there and watch over our Towers; that is your task in life, and no quest could be nobler."

"I beg your pardon, sir," Tom said nervously, "but I am not the son of Samwise. I am Tolman Fairbairn, son of Halfred."

The man smiled. "You are of the line of Samwise -- a most noble lineage among your people. He passed over Sea, an honor granted to only elves and Ringbearers. _He_ passed over Sea, but _you_ cannot. Go back, Tolman son of Samwise. Go home."

A haze came up about them, and the man began fading into the mist. "Who are you?" Tom cried out to him.

"I am but a dream," the man replied. "I am all that remains of your memory of the elves."

He was gone.

*

When Tom awoke, Ayer had already taken apart their little camp. "Come," he said. "Let's keep going."

"I think I dreamt of an elf last night," Tom said, after splashing seawater on his face to dispel his drowsiness.

"So did I," Ayer told him. "Hurry up."

Tom paused, supporting himself against the side of the ship. "You did?"

Ayer, already onboard, crossed his arms and looked down at him, exasperated. "Yes, I did. Are you coming, or shall I leave you here?"

"What's the rush?' Tom asked, hastily pulling himself up onto the deck.

"I don't know," Ayer snapped, and Tom took a step back at the queer expression in his eyes. "I'm just feeling a bit restless."

"You had the same dream as I had, didn't you," Tom said. "The elf told you to give up and go home."

Ayer turned and walked away without saying a word.

"You did, didn't you?" Tom said again, and wondered at the accusatory tone in his voice.

Ayer would not reply.

*

They spoke little for the rest of the day. Whenever Tom tried to bring up the dream, Ayer just set his jaw and refused to acknowledge him. If he'd had Tom's dream, it had not discouraged him in the slightest; if anything, it increased his determination.

Eventually, Tom dropped the subject for good, but there remained a strange tension between them that had never been there before. Even in recent years, when their interests had diverged and they had seen each other less and less frequently, they had always been close. Whenever Tom saw Ayer again, whether days or months had gone by since their last meeting, their friendship just picked up again right where they'd left off. Ayer had put up with Tom's wildest adventures, and Tom with Ayer's strangest passing obsessions. They had never had a rift of any real significance.

But now, Ayer seemed like a stranger to Tom. When they spoke, it was only about the elves; and Ayer would go off on long, rambling tangents about this or that aspect of elven life and history. Everything good came from the elves, he assured Tom, and added that the legendary King Elessar had been raised by elves, which he seemed to think proved his point beyond a doubt. And when he was not speaking to Tom, he was muttering to himself -- Tom tried to make out the words once, but it just seemed to be a jumble of random trivia about elves, as though he were sorting through a vast library of information to find some specific detail.

Tom soon lost track of time; days flowed into each other at an unknown rate, while Ayer rambled and Tom wondered if either or both of them were going mad. So he had no idea how many days had passed when Ayer spotted land.

"There's something out there," Ayer said, calling Tom over to the prow of the ship. "You see? Something green."

Tom squinted into the distance, and sure enough, on the horizon, he could make out a small stretch of green. "Another island?" he guessed.

"See how it glitters," Ayer said in a hushed tone. "Like an emerald. An emerald floating along the waters." He burst out laughing. "The Sea has relinquished another one of her jewels to us, Tom!"

Tom grinned, glad for a reprieve from their tension. "What do you suppose it is this time?"

"Why, Valinor, of course!" Ayer said gaily. "See how it shines! What else could it be?"

Valinor or not, it was land, and that was all Tom cared about. Maybe feeling grass under his feet and tasting fresh herbs -- or even meat of some sort! -- with dinner would bring Ayer back to his senses.

In the meantime, may as well go along with Ayer's high spirits.

"Eärendil returns!" Tom laughed. "The Valar could never resist you."

"It's too bad we haven't found the Sea's Silmaril yet," Ayer said, grinning. "I should like to bind it to my brow and greet the elves in style!"

But as the day progressed, the sky darkened with clouds. By mid-afternoon, the rain began to fall, and Ayer's emerald vanished into the haze. A sharp wind blew in from the west.

"Ayer!" Tom called, as the rain pounded on the deck. "I don't think we'll be able to find your island in this weather. Is there anything I should do with the ship?" The phrase 'batten down the hatches' came to mind, but Tom hadn't the faintest idea what a hatch was or how to go about battening it down.

Ayer stood at the prow as if frozen, staring out into the distance. "We must get to Valinor."

Tom hesitated, unsure of how to approach him. "Ayer," he said carefully. "I think this could turn into quite a storm. I have never experienced a storm at sea, and I don't know what to do. Can you help me?"

"We must keep sailing west," Ayer said without turning.

The rain was falling in sheets now. Tom could hardly see more than a few feet in front of him. "Ayer, I can't even tell which direction west is in anymore! If we can just last through the storm, we'll look for Valinor when the rain stops. But we have to make it through the storm first." He eyed the Sea nervously, and wondered if the waves were getting higher. It certainly felt like a storm; the boat was bobbing up and down nauseatingly, and not all the water splashing the deck was rain.

"Keep to your course."

"I _can't_, Ayer," Tom said through gritted teeth. He stepped forward and grabbed Ayer's arm, pulling his cousin around to face him.

Ayer yanked himself free. "Just keep going west!" he snapped.

The wind howled. Tom thought he saw a flash of lightning. What would happen to the ship if lightning struck it?

He did what he had to do. He panicked.

"It's useless!" Tom yelled. "I don't care if that's Valinor or not! We can't fight this!"

"We have to!" Ayer insisted. Through sheets of rain and sea spray, Tom could see his face lit up as if from within, with a strange, desperate fire. "I have to get there!"

"But why?"

For several long heartbeats, Ayer did not respond. The rain lashed the deck with frightening violence, and Tom wondered if his question had been lost to the screaming wind.

The ship bucked and rolled with sudden violence, sending Tom sprawling to the deck.

Ayer clutched the ship's railing like a lifeline, as if the fate of Middle-earth depended on it. Tom could hardly make out his words over the storm. "I need to bring them back."

He didn't know how he managed it, but somehow Tom pulled himself across the deck to his cousin's side. "No," he said, as gently as he could manage. "No, Ayer, you don't."

"I need them!" Ayer cried. "Middle-earth needs them. Everything good or beautiful in the world came from the elves, and now it's all fading away. What joy will remain on our shores once it's gone?"

Tom was at a loss. The boat seemed in danger of being swamped by the waves at any moment, and Ayer's eyes were wild with an obsession Tom couldn't possibly understand. But he had to, because he could hardly manage the boat on a good day, and this was anything but. "You're wrong," he tried. "We've come this far without them. We're still making joy and beauty of our own. Smaller beauty, maybe, and less grand, but we'll do all right."

"It isn't the same," Ayer whispered, almost inaudibly. "The old stories -- "

"We're still a part of them," Tom said, his mind racing. Was it his imagination, or was the storm getting worse? "Look around you, Ayer. You've built an elven ship, just like the one that carried Frodo of the Ring away to peace. And there are hobbits in the Towers, always repairing and maintaining them, and the spire of Ithilien shines just as brightly as it ever did. The elves started the old stories, but we're still living in them and adding on to them, and _please_, Ayer -- " his voice cracked in desperation " -- if you don't help me now, _our_ part in the story will end here, and no one will be able to tell it."

He reached out his hand.

Ayer stared at it for a long moment, uncomprehendingly. Then, as though a wave had washed over him, he blinked and shook his head rapidly. His eyes cleared, and he clasped Tom's hand.

"Then let's go tell it," he said, and together, they struggled to their feet.

Tom did not know how long the storm raged, if it were for hours or days, but the wind out of the west must have been strong. When the skies finally cleared, the battered ship drifted up onto a sandy beach. Tom and Ayer staggered off the near-wreckage of their vessel, and found themselves on a familiar inlet, at the mouth of the Brandywine River.

*

When they finally made it back to the Towers, they learned that only three weeks had passed since their departure -- not long enough for anyone to have worried about them, although the Warden was somewhat displeased with his son's disregard for his duties. "I hope you have something to show for yourself," he harrumphed.

"I found Valinor," Ayer told him.

Tom turned and left the room.

But rumors of Ayer's discovery spread, and many of the most impressionable tweens and young adults came to Ayer and Tom, demanding explanations. Ayer spoke to them of the elves, of their beauty and culture; he told them of the lost realm of Beleriand, and the havens at Valinor; he taught them of the history of the Silmarils, and the jewels of the Sea. And then one day he left the Towers and went back to Baggins Crossing, to build another ship.

"Oh, no, you don't," Tom said severely, the day he was to set off. "You cannot possibly leave me to fend for myself among your mad students. I know little of the elves; your hobbits will come to me for your stories and I will have nothing to give them."

"You're the one who loves adventure tales," Ayer said, smiling. "I've given them history; now you tell them about our adventure."

But it hadn't been a proper adventure, really; nothing really bad had happened, except for the storm, and the only evil was in Ayer's obsession-bordering-on-madness. And Tom couldn't tell the other hobbits about the long days of nothing but Sea and sky, of dull dreams, of losing track of time because he was so worried about Ayer's strange behavior that he couldn't think of anything else.

So Tom told them an adventure tale. He told them of sea monsters and their treasure hoards, of the vast ruins and wailing ghosts of Nargothrond, of the Silmaril and Emerald of the Sea. And they kept coming back for more details, and further adventures, until it seemed that Tom and Ayer must have spent years sailing across the Sea.

And when at last Ayer's ship was completed, he did not set off alone. A long-dormant lust for adventure and knowledge emerged among their generation of hobbits. Many discovered within themselves a previously unrecognized longing for the elves, and twenty or so decided to forsake responsibilities and the pastoral life for the promise of the Sea.

On the day before they were to leave, Ayer came to see Tom one last time.

"You're finally prepared to set off, then," Tom said, straightening and dusting off his trousers. He was in one of the Warden's private libraries, and had been searching for a scroll of harvest records, which he was sure was in one of two musty old trunks.

Ayer leaned against the doorway. "Yes. That trunk only contains genealogical records, by the way."

"Ah," Tom said. "It's in the other one, then."

"I don't know how you can stand it," Ayer remarked. "All the technicalities of management. Not a good story in a single one of those dry records."

"Nonsense," Tom said. "You just have to read between the lines."

Ayer laughed. "You'll make a far better Warden than I would have."

"Well, I'm not really going to be the Warden, you know," Tom said cautiously. "I'm just substituting for you while you're away; and you'll return long before Uncle dies."

"Of course," Ayer said, but the expression on his face was saying something quite different.

"And anyway," Tom continued, "I've no particular aptitude for a government sort of position. My only talent is as a storyteller."

Ayer's eyes sparkled with mirth. "And what, dear cousin, do you think a government sort of position is all about?"

Tom laughed.

They looked at each other for a long moment, then reached out to clasp hands. "Farewell, Tolman son of Samwise," Ayer said. "I am sorry you are not coming with me again."

"Safe journey," Tom replied, and let him go.

*

Ayer and his friends sailed away, and never returned.

After years had gone by without a word from or about the ship and its crew, hobbits began making up their own explanations. Some believed that Ayer really had found Valinor, and that the elves had welcomed him and his party in as the beloved descendants of Samwise the Brave. Others thought that the ship had simply been lost at Sea, and its passengers all drowned.

But the most common tale was that Ayer's "Emerald of the Sea" was not Valinor, but another land entirely -- an island, in all probability, much like the one with the elven burial mound, but far larger. The legend -- for so it became -- claimed that Ayer and his shipmates had landed there and gone no further, but built a new settlement of Little People, and thrived. The island itself became known in the stories as Ayer's Land; or, as Tom called it, the Emerald Isle.

_On an emerald on the Sea there lived a hobbit..._


End file.
